Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2020 July 7

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July 7

Question about the movie and tv industry

Has filming in movies and tv shows resumed in La or New York? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:8D80:406:AB36:FA01:99CB:1818:8C9D (talk) 02:39, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Why the specific distance for the marathon?

From 1896 to 1920, the organizers of each successive Olympic games chose not only the course for the marathon, but what distance the race would cover. After 1920 the distance that had been used in London in 1908 was made the standard and has been used ever since. But why did they pick that specific distance? The 1924 games weren't in London, and the distance wasn't a round number in either miles or kilometers. So what was the motivation for fixing on that particular standard? --174.89.49.204 (talk) 07:40, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I am open to correction but I believe that the distance of a marathon is set by the distance between Marathon, Greece and Athens, Greece. As set out in the original Olympics of antiquity. 86.162.76.127 (talk) 08:27, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

That's only true in general terms. :There is a more specific explanation here. The distance was apparently decided at a meeting of the World Records Committee of the IAAF on May 27, 1921. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:28, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I can't read that page. But as noted in the article the OP linked, the 1908 race happened to be 26 miles plus 385 yards, and that distance was set as the standard in 1921. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:07, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Here is the text mentioned above:

For the first marathon race in 1896 at the Olympic Games in Athens, a "runable course", about 40km long, was chosen, which led from the gates of Marathon to the stadium in Athens. As there was not an athletics regulations commission to set the norm until the founding of the IAAF in 1913 in Berlin, going forward, every event organiser determined the exact length of the marathon course according to the local conditions.

Due to the dominance of North American athletics, the length of most marathon courses was set at about 25 miles or 40km. In Boston, the oldest marathon, which was first held in April 1897 and every year since, the course was only 24 miles leading from Hopkinton to Boston.

The traditional 25 mile course served as a basis for the Olympic Marathon in 1908 in London. The announcement for bids read: "The 40km marathon race will take run on public streets, which will be marked by the Amateur Athletics Association, and will end on the stadium track, where the last 1/3 mile is to be run (1 lap = 536 metres).

The 1908 Olympic athletics competitions took place from July 13-25, 1908, in the "Great Stadium" in Shepherd's Bush, London. The Olympic Marathon took place in London on Friday, July 24, 1908.

For the first time, the course in London was precisely measured, and a detailed course map was published. The 1908 marathon course was measured backwards from the finish to the start, which had been set as the east terrace of Windsor Castle.

This starting point was chosen so that members of the Royal Family would be able to start off the marathon. The planned 25 miles from the entrance of the "Great Stadium" ended at Barnespool Bridge in Eton, and the distance from there to the start was one more mile, making the total course length 26-miles.

The marathon was then to end directly in front of the Royal Box in the London Olympic Stadium - meaning one complete stadium lap would not be possible, as had originally been called for. The distance from the entrance of the stadium to the Royal Box was 385 yards. This made the formula for the London marathon "25 miles + 1 mile + 385 yards; that makes 42.195km. The official report, however, falsely calculated the conversion, listing it as 42.263km.

To make it comparable, the rematch, which took place between Hayes and Pietri after the 1908 Olympic Games, was also run on a course based upon the London measurements of 42.195km = 26 miles, 385 yards. This then served as a quasi-standard for the marathon course, which some marathon organisers followed from then on.

With the founding of the IAAF in Berlin in 1913, a regulations commission was established, which was to create a draft for the athletics program for the IOC session in Lyon in 1914. In this draft, which was approved in 1914 at the second IAAF congress in Lyon, the marathon was set at 40.200 metres, or 25 miles. The IOC, however, decided at the Olympic Congress in 1914 in Lyon to set the distance at 42 km. According to the Greek IOC member Alexander Merkati, this was the correct course length (probably because this is the distance run at the 1906 Olympic Games in Athens).

Due to the local conditions at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, the marathon distance was extended to 42.750km. This new course length led to renewed discussions on the course distance, bringing it to the tables at the fourth IAAF Congress in Geneva in 1921.

On May 27, 1921, the competent IAAF organ, the World Records Committee, decided to set the distance of the Olympic marathon according to the London model: 42.195km = 26 miles, 385 yards!

Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:22, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

That 1908 marathon was where Dorando Pietri pushed himself to the limit on a hot day. That last 385 yards nearly did him in. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:56, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Just to correct a mistake by one of the earlier posters. The marathon was not run in the Olympic games of Antiquity. It was an event specially created for the first modern Olympics, held in Athens in 1896, based on the story of the battle of Marathon. It was a great success and caught the public's imagination, and as a result was repeated at all future games (and duplicated elsewhere, like Boston), but the event was not standardized for some time, as explained in the paragraphs reproduced above. The marathon at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis was quite a fiasco, making the need for some standardization obvious (hence the efforts by London four years later to measure the distance properly and so forth). Xuxl (talk) 13:05, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

So the key words in the cited page are "This then served as a quasi-standard for the marathon course, which some marathon organisers followed from then on." In other words, it was just after the 1908 Olympics that people started wanting a standard distance, and that explains why the 1908 distance was considered a reasonable choice. Thanks. --174.89.49.204 (talk) 23:07, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Clint Eastwood

I am looking for a video that I have heard about but never seen. It involves Clint Eastwood lighting a cigarette; He supposedly flicks the cigarette and catches it with his mouth while simultaneously lighting a zippo lighter. It is supposed to prove that he is the coolest man in Hollywood. Any help would be appreciated as Google and Youtube searches have not been successful. Thanks 86.162.76.127 (talk) 13:05, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

There is some speculation that he did this trick on a Swedish talk show, but 1) nobody can track down the incident 2) he didn't smoke. See Rumors about Clint Eastwood's cigarette trick. However, a respondant to Eastwood's elusive cigarette trick! says that "The interview was done in Sweden by a lady named Stina Dabrowski, some time early 1990's (I estimate it to 92-94 or so)". Alansplodge (talk) 17:33, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Gjorde Clint Eastwood verkligen ett cigarettrick under en intervju? (Did Clint Eastwood really make a cigarette trick during an interview?) has a quote from Dabrowski about the 1992 interview with Clint Eastwood (in Swedish, my translation from Bing Translate):

"The translation machine didn't work so I had to sit and translate directly what he said. This meant that everything took a lot longer, which meant that I did not have time to finish. Then I got so amazingly angry that I threw the script bundle on the desk and shouted 'fucking hell shit', and it went out on the air... If he had done this trick, I think I would have remembered it, but I think unfortunately it's a tall tale, even if it would have been very fun if it were true. But I don't know, and the only way to find out is to find that program".

The article continues: 'There seems to be no recording of the 1992 interview with Clint Eastwood, so it is not possible to verify for sure that the trick did not happen at this stage. "We have naturally had that tape ourselves, but in some big cleaning we have probably thrown it away, unaware of how much it would be," says Stina Lundberg Dabrowski, who promises to say whether she would find the tape in the attic at some point... But then why do so many people think they have seen Clint Eastwood do this cool cigarette trick on television? The answer to that question, we might find in a psychological phenomenon called "false memory". It is simply when a person thinks they remember something that has never happened. This is something that can also affect large groups of people'. Alansplodge (talk) 17:54, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe he only smoked on-screen. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:05, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

He certainly smoked in films, but it seems unlikely that a non-smoker would take cigarettes and a lighter to a chat show, still less light one. Alansplodge (talk) 17:51, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The concept Mandela effect may be of interest. I wonder if there's enough material out there to give this its own article: it's the cover story on this month's Fortean Times, for example. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.56.20 (talk) 12:01, 8 July 2020 (UTC)